1st photo is a little blurry, but it shows the Rhine River; Emily Pederson and her father; Bro. Pederson giving the talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

JULY 25, 2010 SUNDAY

Sister Dorothea picked us up this morning at 7:40 and took us to the park and ride below the Church where the members were assembling along with the Pederson family for Emily Pederson’s early morning baptism in the Rhine River. When all had arrived, we car-pooled and drove in a procession to a beautiful spot on the Rhine. It was overcast and pretty chilly, but the talks were great and the Spirit strong. Emily was baptized by her father in the river, all going smoothly. Both were given blankets to keep warm while they walked back to the change rooms to change from wet to dry clothes. We were back at the Church in time for the regular start time for sacrament meeting. Jecelyn Hoenle stayed at the Church during the baptism and greeted us when we arrived. She was beaming when she told us she was pregnant again. She had a miscarriage with her first try a few months ago and this time we hope and pray that she can carry to term. She and Karl so much want to have a family.

The Stake Patriarch, Robert Koch, and his wife were the guest speakers today. After we renewed our baptismal covenants through the sacrament, both spoke to us. Sister Koch spoke on being happy and gave us good council on how we can achieve it. If we live the commandments and follow the Spirit, we can be happy even in the midst of trials and troubles. We have been promised, if we do that and endure to the end, we’ll be received into a state of happiness after we leave this life.

Elder Koch spoke on being washed clean through ordinance of baptism and used this morning’s baptism of Emily to illustrate. However, how long was it after we were baptized that we sinned again? Through faith and true repentance we can again be made clean through the Atonement of Christ as we partake of the sacrament week by week. We can make progress by doing the little things we’ve been asked to do such as pray daily, read scriptures, hold family home evening, do our visiting and home teaching, magnify our callings, attending Church meetings and etc. He talked of the need for the saints to be united and support one another instead of being critical.

Elder Koch also lead the discussion in Sunday School, but Pres. Flammia came and got me so I didn’t get to hear it. Pres. Flammia wanted me to review Paul Hunziker’s membership record to make sure all the dates and information were correct before he printed out a copy for Paul. After we were through with that we went over our weekly progress report. We discussed the progress with Jasmin Hunziker and then spent a lot of time talking about Sylvain. Pres. Flammia wishes he could take a year off from work and family responsibilities to spend in isolation with Sylvain to help him overcome his alcoholism. Of course that isn’t expected or practical, but he feels a responsibility toward Sylvain both as the branch president and as his friend to help him. Sometimes I feel Sylvain plays on the sympathies of others to get attention, but again, I may be wrong.

We got the website from Sister Flammia with the information for the Young Women Camp to give to Jasmin so India can attend, if she wants. We sent it to Jasmin in a text message. We also made arrangements for Sandro DeMarzi to go with us on our next teaching appointment with her next Tuesday. In the text message we asked her if it would be okay to bring him. If she really does accept a baptism date, someone from the ward should be with her for the transition from us to the next missionary couple that will come to replace us. There probably isn’t enough time between now and August 12 to finish the teaching, complete the necessary interview and make baptism arrangements. It would be nice, but probably won’t happen that quickly.

After the meetings were over and the normal visiting had taken place, Karl & Jecelyn Hoenle and we went to a classroom where we could give them the home teaching lesson. We made this arrangement because it would be almost impossible to go to their home in Germany to visit them there. Our companion, Michael Hartig, couldn’t stay because he had to catch his train back to Horheim. We had a good discussion on prayer using the same scripture we used with the group of older sisters on Thursday. We discussed the missionary work both of them were doing and we gave them some Church DVDs for them to use. It’s great to see members involved in missionary work.

We are planning another P-day trip tomorrow that will start out at 6:47 in the morning and will get us back home somewhere around 6:00 p.m. So this afternoon we prepared our lesson for Jasmin which is Tuesday morning because we won’t have time to do it on Monday or Tuesday. However, we got an answer back from our text message to her saying she had to cancel because of work, but she confirmed our appointment with her on August 5. We’ll try and stay in contact with her by taking her the triple combination she wanted and sending her text messages once in awhile. We also called Fatma Altunoez who said she and her family were on their way Basel. We told her we would call again Tuesday or Wednesday.